


The Waterskin Gag

by Unsent13



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Crying, Desperation, Gen, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Wetting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:01:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25559983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsent13/pseuds/Unsent13
Summary: Zuko's been tied to a tree for several hours now and his problem's growing worse. Not that he could tell anyone about it if he tried. If there's one thing to say about the Avatar's little group, it's that their gags are very effective.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 130





	The Waterskin Gag

**Author's Note:**

> This is set just after the Siege of the North and Zuko is still in his white clothes. The Gaang tied him up much more securely in Appa's saddle and so he wasn't able to escape with his uncle, hence why he's their prisoner. They never went to General Fong. Slight canon divergence, but eh.

It was obvious they’d thought about this. Filled and bulbous waterskins were tied to his hands and bare feet: if he wanted to bend, he’d have to put up with scalding water against his skin instead of fire. He was gagged with another one, stretching across both cheeks. He could breathe through his nose, but even breath of fire had caused the water to become uncomfortably warm against his face. His fingers were pruning. In the absence of handcuffs, his captors had used several layers of tree bark and had nailed them around his wrists, ankles, knees, elbows and neck. Every time he moved they chafed, and he thought he had a splinter in his arm. And, on top of that, Katara was watching him.

“I don’t trust either of you with him,” she’d said. “Aang, you’re too nice. You’d let him go.”

“Yeah...” sighed Aang.

“And Sokka, he’d trick you.”

“Hey!”

“He would! He’s evil. He’d do it. He’d say ‘what’s that’ and then you’d turn to see what it was, and, by the time you’d have realised there was nothing there, he’d have gone.”

“ _Katara_!”

“Well, at least we don’t have to watch a prisoner all day!” Aang had exclaimed, and, brightening, Sokka had followed him off into the woods.

And Zuko had been left alone with Katara, who was stoking the fire and who, in retrospect, was terrifying when she had power. She hadn’t untied him once, for starters, and it had been hours.

 _Let me down_ , he wanted to say. _Let me go! I’ve done nothing to you!_ It would be a lie, but _technically_ true, as he’d only done the bare minimum to her and her brother in order to get to Aang. The necklace non-withstanding. He hadn’t known it was her mother’s.

 _Is any of that my food?_ He wanted to ask. Sokka and Aang still hadn’t returned, but she would probably call them back for lunch soon, judging by the amount of rice in the pot over the fire. At least he’d had something to drink, and he’d been steadily drinking the water against his mouth, but there had been two litres of it, and it was still heavy against his face. He hadn’t had anything to eat since the siege.

And, most pressingly, _Is there any way one of you could escort me into the forest for a couple of minutes? I promise I won’t escape!_ All that water had backfired. Still tied up as he was, and in white clothes, there was currently no good outcome to the scenario. Also, if he wasn’t getting the water gag taken off for food, there would be no way to bargain with her. He’d be willing to give up a small bit of dignity (being escorted) in order to keep the larger part of his dignity in tact (relieving himself under his own power).

Finally, Katara stood up. “Stay there,” she said, like he had any other choice, and ventured into the trees to fetch Aang and Sokka for the midday meal. Zuko took the chance to squirm while no-one was watching, shifting himself as best he could (not very well) into a less desperate position, and trying not to think of the fact _he was covered in bags of water_.

“Oh man! Where’s the meat!?”

“Sokka, the monks always said all life was sacred, which it is! You don’t _need_ meat! Stuff is better without it, anyway, because you’re not thinking of dead animals when you’re eating!”

“ _I_ don’t think of dead animals when I’m eating! I think of _meat_! And how _good_ it is!”

“Sokka, you didn’t go hunting so I didn’t cook meat. If you want something else, cook it yourself!”

And they arranged themselves around the fire, and Katara put food out into bowls.

“Aren’t we giving some to Zuko?” asked Aang, sounding puppy-eyed, though Zuko could only see the back of him. Then he turned to glance, and apparently he was only wary. Great, even the pacifist didn’t care whether he was fed or not.

“No,” said Katara. And then, after being given funny looks by both Sokka and Aang, sighed and started putting food into another bowl. “Fine.” Stood up when the bowl was only halfway full – nowhere near a decent portion – and stepped over to Zuko. She scraped up a spoonful (half the bowl), bent aside the water gag in a way that didn’t look good for the continued survival of the waterskin, and, before she could feed him a spoonful, he said-

“Katara, please can you-” And he couldn’t finish because she wasn’t listening and a spoon was in the way. Then the water gag was back in place while he chewed miserably and she waited.

Another spoonful. Bent back gag. “Listen! I need-” Spoon in. Gag back. Miserable chewing.

Somehow she managed a third spoonful of the crumbs. “Bushes!” he managed, before it was shoved in his mouth and the gag was back. His face heated. Forced to practically yell he needed to piss at a girl who was his enemy, whilst she was force feeding him.

“What?” said Katara, a blank look on her face. Neither Aang nor Sokka seemed to have heard him, so apparently ‘yell’ was an exaggeration. He wasn’t sure if that was good news or not. In any case, why was she looking so confused? Didn’t she know what ‘bushes’ meant? And then her face cleared and a small smile formed on her lips. “Oh Zuko,” she said, quietly. “Begging?” And then, the smile turning into a grin, she sat down with her back to him at the fire and proceeded to ignore him for another hour, talking and laughing with the others, while Zuko tried not to squirm or grimace and hold on to what was in his bladder.

Then, mercifully, Sokka stood up. “Alright,” he said, “I’m going off into the forest for a couple of minutes. You want me to take him?” And jerked his thumb towards Zuko without looking at him.

“Already took him,” said Katara, the liar. “Just before lunch. He tried to escape _twice_ , burnt me, and it was really difficult to get him tied up again on my own. He’s fine. I’ll take him again before we go to bed.” (She had better.)

Sokka shrugged. “Alright, then,” he said. “Might be better if a guy took him, though.”

“Learning to be a healer,” muttered Katara. “Seen everything. Doesn’t bother me.”

Sokka made an agreeing noise and wandered off into the forest. Katara turned to face him again.

“Have you been drinking that waterskin?” she asked – sounding only mildly interested, for Aang’s sake, probably. And then, to Zuko’s horror, she bent another half litre of water into the skin in a way that brushed over most of his face on the way in. He trembled. “There,” she said. “Fixed!”

Oh, what was dignity, anyway? He made the loudest noise he could with his mouth shut, and stared pointedly at Aang with a pleading expression on his face.

“Sorry, Zuko,” said Aang, “I promised not to untie you.”

He tried making the noise louder to indicate that, no, that wasn’t what he’d meant, but ended up accidentally opening his lips a bit and breathing in water. The resulting coughing fit lasted ten minutes and, what was worse, at every cough his tenuous control over his bladder became worse and worse. It was sheer willpower he didn’t wet himself then and there.

“Is he ok?” asked Sokka, coming back through the trees.

“He’s fine,” said Katara. She poked at the fire with a stick.

For the next few hours, Katara taught Aang some more waterbending moves, both of them playing catch with a ball of water over the fire (hissing every time it passed over in a way that made Zuko wish he’d never been born), and going through katas. Katara kept sending him smirks whenever the water made too much of a sloshing sound.

“You ok over there, Zuko?” she asked, dropping her water in a steady pattering stream onto the grass in a way that sounded like urine. “Are we keeping you?”

Zuko made an angry noise through the gag and tried to press his thighs together as his bladder pulsed in response. He failed: his knees were too tightly bound to the tree. Anything could tip him over the edge now, and, judging by Katara’s expression, she seemed to know it.

With a slow hand, she dragged the water back up from the ground, and, watching his face, let it patter back down in exactly the same manner as before.

Something in him let go, despite Zuko hating that something with his entire being. A warm, wet stream of pee started up against his leg, dribbling down into the grass and becoming steadier without his consent. He heard Katara start giggling and didn’t look at anything but the floor, trying to avoid noticing the new yellow stain growing helplessly larger on white pants; trying to disappear into the tree through sheer embarrassed force.

“Zuko!” said Aang, rushing over and then standing back a few steps, probably not wanting to _touch_ him because he was _wetting_ himself.

“Katara!” squawked Sokka, “You said you took him!”

Katara was still giggling.

Zuko’s face was going red. He could feel it. He wanted to cry. Slowly the stream of pee tapered off into a dribble, and then into a drip, and then his leg was cold. And damp. And smelt.

Someone took the gag off. He didn’t even look up to see who, though it was a brown hand. He just tried not to sob and failed. What was even the use not crying, if he’d already _wet_ himself like a baby. His dignity was _gone_.

“Katara!” The voice was Sokka’s, and all too near. It sounded angry. “How could you even do that? I _trusted_ you!”

Katara stopped giggling. “He’s Zuko!” she snapped. “You know, the prince who _chased Aang_ all over the _world_?”

“He’s crying!”

“He deserves it!”

“Zuko, are you ok?” asked Aang. He was untying the waterskin on his left hand and then, finished with that, moved onto the bark securing his wrist.

Zuko didn’t answer. They could already see why he was upset: his shame had left a discoloured stain. A tear ran down his good cheek and dripped onto his shirt. His pant leg clung.

Sokka started hacking through the bark restraints on his other arm.

“Why are you _untying_ him?”

“Because,” said Sokka, “you-” another free wrist “were _unnecessarily_ cruel, and-” he was still hacking them off “I don’t think that’s right, not even” gone “for jerkbenders.” Another. “Or we’re as bad as them.” He pulled off the one on Zuko’s neck – the last one – and put his arm around his shoulders.

Zuko buried his face into his newly freed elbow and tried to get his breathing under control, but instead his breath just caught on another sob and he found himself crying harder. Sokka tugged him.

“Come on,” he said. “Aang, can you get some of my spares out of my pack? And soap, maybe? I’m taking him down to the river.”

“You can’t just let him _escape_!”

“After that, if I don’t let him escape, I’m going to have nightmares about being a terrible person. Stay there. You’ve done enough.”

“I was only _teasing_ him. I didn’t- I didn’t mean it to go that far, Sokka. But, if you let him go now, you’re wasting all of our efforts! He’s just going to go off and try to capture Aang again!”

Sokka let go of Zuko’s shoulders, halfway to the treeline. “It doesn’t _matter_ , Katara! He’s my age and we just tied him to a tree and let him _wet_ himself! And then you just laughed when he cried, understandably, because he was _humiliated_ , like anyone would be! That’s wrong, Katara! That’s just wrong!”

He didn’t let her respond, pulling Zuko into the forest without a reply and downhill through the trees to a river. “Right,” he said. “Escape if you want, but Aang’s bringing you clothes and soap and I’m going to turn my back so you can have some privacy-”

“Got them!” said Aang, dissolving his air scooter nearby and handing Sokka a pile of blue before disappearing back through the trees.

“Thanks!” yelled Sokka. Then he handed Zuko the soap, set the clothes down on the rock Zuko had thought he was going to sit on, sat on the grass next to them instead and turned his back. “Take all the time you need,” he said. “Damn Katara. She just _doesn’t think_. She’s like Aang. Everything’s fun and games until ‘oh no, consequences? not my fault!’ It’s always been like that. She didn’t mean it to come off as cruel. She just- She just did it and she _didn’t think_. Damn her.”

Zuko wiped his face for a final time and pulled off his clothes. Then set them on fire. Then waded into the river, leaving them a smouldering pile of ash on the bank to die like the memories he wished would die with them.

He didn’t warm the water up. He didn’t want the reminder. He just scrubbed in the cold until his skin was red and his thighs stung and put Sokka’s clothes on while Sokka just talked about mundane things and nothing about Katara. There wasn’t a shirt or socks, but he didn’t regret burning the white clothes one single bit. Instead, he said, “I’m done,” in a quiet voice, and waited to be led back. Where would he even escape to? His uncle was probably halfway across the Earth Kingdom by now and his crew was dead.

Sokka turned around, surprised. “Aren’t you going to escape?”

“Where to?” asked Zuko, flatly. “Besides, I haven’t got a shirt or footwear or any supplies and I don’t know where my Uncle is.”

“I’ll get you a shirt,” said Sokka. “That’s about the only one of those I can do. You can stay with us as long as you like. I’m not tying you up again.”

“Right,” said Zuko. He considered ‘thanks’ but, really, was it ‘thanks’ when he’d been tied up by them in the first place? No, it wasn’t.

“Again,” said Sokka. “Sor-”

Zuko snapped. “If you apologise _one more time_ ,” he said, “I’m burning something precious of yours to ash. I don’t need the constant reminder that I pissed myself _or_ cried, thanks – both were absolutely _humiliating_ and neither were my fault - and we’re never speaking of it past this moment even if your fucking sister brings it up.”

Sokka put up his hands. “Fine by me,” he said, and left it there.


End file.
